


Neophyte

by FiveTail



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abuse, Accidental Voyeurism, Aftercare, Asphyxiation, Bloodplay, Body Worship, Celibacy, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fucked Up, Gore, Manipulation, Masochism, Murder, Mutilation, Non-Sexual Submission, Praise Kink, Priest Kink, Religious Fanaticism, Sadism, Self-Mutilation, Sexual Submission, Teacher-Student Relationship, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Virginity or Celibacy Kink, Yandere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:40:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveTail/pseuds/FiveTail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hidan reluctantly takes on a religious apprentice: a reserved, devoted girl willing to go to extreme lengths to gain her teacher's recognition. She is nothing special. He treats her about as well as you'd expect.</p><p>Hidan/OC. NSFW. First chapter revised PWP from years ago, character-building to follow. Read through the tags carefully for content warnings. Not a comprehensive list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teacher's Pet

**Author's Note:**

> Look. I'm sorry. I can explain.
> 
> Several years ago, Canon/OC fics were massive in the fandom. Hidan was my favourite, but I didn't think there were any good Canon/OC fics out there, and there's pretty much no way in hell I could fit a canon character into this exact kind of fucked-up dynamic I wanted without making someone wildly OOC. This ended up being the very first smutfic I ever wrote, and I remember doing a shitton of research and reading to make sure it didn't suck. It's purple-prosey, but I'm still pretty proud of it.
> 
> This was originally meant to be a series, which I never completed due to a change of interest in fandom. Recently, I found floppy disks filled with all of the future notes for this series. It kinda inspired me to finish the first thing I ever started. It's not perfect, but I figured I'd try building off of what I did instead of revamping the entire thing.
> 
> I'm basically airing out past-me's dirty laundry right now.
> 
> God, I'm so sorry.
> 
> For reference, [here's what Yuni looks like.](http://cookieholicnyu.deviantart.com/art/COM-fivetail-544906297)
> 
>  ****Please read the following**** I wrote this initial chapter when I was 16. Yuni is a very naive, weak, submissive character that she'll be given the chance to grow out of later on. The chapter itself has been revised to remove the more problematic aspects of my old interpretation of Hidan's character (I used to write him p skeevy,) to align more with how I write him today.

Faint rays of afternoon sunlight danced upon the shadowed ground beneath his feet, swaying in time to the quiet echoes of a summer breeze. The gentle, flickering glows were watched carefully by the Shinobi standing within the forest below: a man who was just _waiting_ for his opponent to mess up her trap and accidentally give away her position.

A clever weight shift and a simple flick of the wrist was all it took to catch the girl off-guard; the second swing from the bar of his scythe managed to hit her spot-on, sending his target crashing back-first into a nearby tree.

The opportunity she let slip during battle had been an honest mistake, but it was nothing Hidan wouldn’t take his rightful advantage of.

She hunched over herself a few yards away, holding a hand against the ground for stability as she recovered from the folly.

The pain across the girl’s upper abdomen made her strain as she looked over at the man, and grinned. “First strike wins, Sensei.”

“Like hell it does. Stand the fuck up.”

She looked surprised.

“I’m sick of letting you waste my fucking time,” Hidan scowled. “I knew you were weak, but this is just fucking ridiculous.”

Sighing, the young woman brushed the back of her hand across her face, wiping a spot of blood away from the corner of her mouth.

“I apologize for my behavior, Hidan-sama,” she responded firmly. “I guess I’ve been...kinda distracted lately.”

“Seriously, I don’t remember saying I gave a shit. I said get up.”

She gave herself another moment to regain her equilibrium before obeying the order and rising shakily back to her feet.

Even though sparring matches were common during these rare outings together, they never failed to establish which of the two Shinobi remained the superior fighter. A life’s worth of Academy training had done nothing special to prepare the kunoichi for the superior combative skills of a runaway; none of her learned tactics made the slightest difference in changing the battle’s outcome, a fact Hidan loved to exploit at every given opportunity.

Still, save for a few empty threats and a couple of harmless scuffs during battle, Hidan never really _tried_ to hurt the girl.

No, he made her do that part all on her own.

Yuni brushed the fresh marks of dirt from her gloved hands, shaking brown tint from black cloth. “Sensei, I need to ask you something.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, readily grasping the base of the weapon tied around his back. “What’s that?”

“Are we friends?”

“Are you shitting me?”

She looked away and breathed her laughter.

The girl was his latest inductee into Jashinism, and quite unfortunately, the only _willing_ inductee he could find thus far. She held her loyalty to her village, however, with the same weight as she carried her loyalty to their god, a fact Hidan couldn’t bring himself to speak against when he considered the organization with which he held his own high regards.

Jashin wouldn’t have liked it if one of his most dedicated servants turned down a heathen’s request to be redeemed, after all.

She would vie for an away mission every so often to meet with him in secret, to train and discuss new ways of cleansing the world of the blasphemous. She kept true to her word and obeyed his every command without objection, and maintained a steady count of sacrifices by taking on assassination missions whenever she could. 

But, most importantly, she always made sure to stay the hell out of her teacher’s business.

She knew nothing about him, his partner, or his affiliations, and he took advantage of that boundary by asking her seemingly-innocent details about her village and reporting them back to his organization. His teammate Kakuzu, of course, knew of the informant’s existence. Hidan claimed he had to start taking a couple of days off every other month or so to gather information on his own; although it wasn’t regarded as ‘fiscally ideal’ at first, Hidan managed to fully convince Kakuzu into letting him go by using an ancient and powerful mind-controlling technique known as ‘bitching one’s mouth off’.

Although the little acolyte from Konoha acted as a more-than-faithful apprentice for the past several months, there _were_ the unexpected instances when her stupidity could play her off as someone a quarter of her age.

This instance, for example.

“Remind me why in the _fuck_ I would want to be friends with someone like you. Just because you _exploited_ my ass into agreeing to baptize you, that doesn’t mean I have to like you. As a matter of fact, I hate you. With a burning fucking passion.” He shrugged. “I’m just waiting for you to screw something up so there’s an excuse to kill you and get it the fuck over with.”

“Of course, Hidan-sama,” she said, scratching her cheek. “I was just making sure, is all.”

“Yeah, well, now you know. The hell’s got you so interested all of a sudden, anyway?”

“Nothing! I...if there was anything I could do to change your mind, you know I’d--”

He flipped her off. “Suck my dick, kid.”

“Would that help?”

The way she asked was _far_ too earnest for his liking.

Before she had a chance to react, Hidan swiftly withdrew his scythe and charged towards her, shoving the back of the handle forward and pressing the metallic bar hard against her throat. He held his student high up against the side of the tree, using nothing more than a single hand to wield the enormous weapon now pinning her to the bark.

She clenched onto either side of the intruding pole and focused all of her remaining strength, relieving the pressure on her neck just enough to allow herself to speak.

“I mean, you tell me to do that a lot,” she choked out, forcing a smile. “Just wondering if it’s an insult or a request.”

He scoffed. “You’re just a good-for-nothing fucking pervert, aren’t you?”

But their fight wasn’t over.

The individual he had held to the tree disappeared in a large billow of smoke, replaced with a large tree branch. Hidan wheeled around, predicting the assault rushing in from behind him and clashing the suddenly encroaching blade against his own. Before he was given the opportunity to serve a punishing counter-attack, a shrill pain shot through his body as he felt something sharp wrench itself into the base of his spine. The clone he was facing disappeared in another cloud, and it became obvious that the wooden ‘replacement’ had been the kunoichi all along.

Usually, Yuni was an extremely polite, extremely quiet, extremely _obedient_ girl who was respectful to those above her station. She always tried her hardest to show her skills were improving under his instruction, but fighting was the only time she could ever get his attention.

Sparring was the only instance she ever dared to lay a finger on him.

To this day, the young woman strived to do everything in her power to show Hidan that her devotion had never faltered and will never change. No matter what he said or how he treated her, she’d always value his guidance above and beyond anyone else’s. Because, as his apprentice, she was there to serve him.

Nothing more.

Hidan sneered. “I’d _thought_ that was one unnaturally ugly fucking tree branch.”

Standing on her toes to take on his height, she wrapped an arm around his chest, pulling him backwards onto the knife so that his ear and her mouth were made level. “Do you really think I’m ugly?”

“You slimy little prick...” he barked, cringing. “I swear to God, I’m making the next thirty seconds as painful for you as humanly fucking possible.”

She twisted the kunai in an inch or two further before violently ripping it out of his body.

Her giggle trembled. “Uh-oh.”

_‘Darn it, why haven’t these healed yet?’_

_The black-haired young woman shifted uncomfortably in the bar stool, attempting to ease the stinging pains across her back. The wounds caused from her last self-flagellation had been inflicted during a penance ritual she performed some time ago. She wasn’t a medic-nin, nor could she heal at the alarmingly fast rate her teacher did, but two days should have been more than enough to recover from something as minor as a sound lashing._

_Regardless, Yuni sighed, glancing up at the clock on the wall just in time to mark the second hour she’d been sitting here in wait. It had taken half a day to reach the next town, and she was sure she wasn’t the only one praying to Jashin that tonight was going to prove worth the walk._

_To pass the time, the kunoichi even denied her better judgment and welcomed a conversation with a masked individual at the far end of her table. A heavy black overcoat was draped over the man’s massive shoulders, the mark across his hitai-ate’s plate branding him a runaway Falls-nin. Yuni became less and less apprehensive towards the stranger as their dialogue continued, realizing that if someone with his immense Chakra levels had wanted to kill her, he would’ve made his intentions known a long time ago._

_They had nothing more than a well-mannered discussion that ended with an abrupt goodbye, followed by him dropping a few coins onto the table to pay for his untouched drink before he made his departure._

_‘Sir’, she called him._

_She never asked him his name._

_The kunoichi folded her arms upon the wooden countertop and picked up her glass of water, swirling around its contents before raising it to her mouth._

_She sighed into the cup as she heard the customer behind her giggle shyly._

_By now, that woman was probably bringing a softly closed hand to her lips; she’d turn away and blush discreetly while the man in front of her fondled at the length of her hair, breathing lines of harmless, beguiling temptation into her ear. His hand would then move, slowly but surely, to brush across the surface of her wrist, the one she rested so unintentionally, so welcomingly upon the tabletop. Her red-stained lips would part unwittingly at the contact, eliciting nothing more than an irresistibly charming smirk from her handsome courtier._

_As always, Yuni kept her back turned and stayed the hell out of her teacher’s business._

_The apprentice would label generally anyone ‘suitable’ as immolation to Jashin, with rival Shinobi and mission objectives being her most common targets of practice. But her teacher...no, her teacher wasn’t as blatantly arbitrary as she was. Hidan would give a quick scan of the room and become transfixed on a single individual, and whomever he decided on would die that very night._

_His apprentice could sense the bloodlust building under his surface, ready and willing to escape whatever shithole they were stuck in and claim the crimson reward hiding beneath the unsuspecting victim’s skin._

_Hidan always managed to sweet-talk his way into getting his sacrifices._

_“It’s almost as if God put me on this earth...for the sole purpose of finding you.”_

_It was a closing line that had been rehearsed in front of countless other women, countless times before._

_Yuni glanced over her shoulder as she heard the chairs behind her shuffle and scrape against the hardwood floors of the tavern. Rising from the table, Hidan took the stranger’s hand into his own and charged swiftly towards the exit, his newfound prey skipping off and tittering behind him. The lady was probably just excited towards the prospect of having someone take her out of public’s eye and retreat to a hidden place--like his hotel room--to ‘talk’.  
But he was eager for a completely unrelated reason._

_“Looks like someone’s getting lucky tonight, eh?” the bartender leered, noticing the Leaf-nin as she watched the two adults leave the area._

_Yuni turned back and took another wordless sip of her drink._

_That wasn’t luck._

_That was skill._

Yuni hadn’t encountered the concept of celibacy prior to her introduction to the Jashinist religion; she soon learned it was defined by the presence of a strict promise made to God, and that in most cases, any follower who broke that vow would burn in the depths of hell for all eternity (the heathen). 

Before she set out to relocate the priest who would baptize her, she understood that agreeing to the terms set forth by the scripture automatically erased all possibilities of a certain future—particularly, one involving love, marriage, family, and the mothering of ongoing generations.

She did not view celibacy as a future robbed from her, but rather, as rare opportunities and a vast array of loopholes bestowed, waiting to be exploited.

You just needed to find the right lines of scripture to read between.

-

Hidan returned to the inn room much later on into the night, enveloped by wistful unease as he dropped his scythe and slammed the door behind him.

He wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with anxious fingers, his sighs rough and impatient. He always felt so restless and frustrated whenever he returned mid-ceremony; these loud, bloody, painful rituals had the tendency to leave the man so incredibly _frustrated_ at times, he rarely knew what to do with himself by the time he got back...at least, the things which normally came to mind couldn’t be done with Kakuzu listening in three feet away.

For the next few days, however, it would be his student waiting up for him, rather than his usual teammate.

As if reading his mind, he heard her clear her throat.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been pacing around, trying to ignore the tightness in his pants. He doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting on the futon, watching him curse at himself, with her loose, waist-length hair framing her uncovered shoulders. Her cloak was folded neatly in a corner. Her hands were folded neatly atop her lap. She only waited for him like this, patient and unmoving, when she wanted something.

She did not make eye contact when she spoke.

“Tell me what to do,” she said.

_Shut up._

_Leave me alone._

_Go fuck yourself._

His knee-jerk reactions stayed locked behind his silence, and all at once he realized that she, as a fellow Jashinist, could read his current state as plain as the nose on his face—that over the course of the past several months, she’d known exactly what he’d been going through, but hadn’t gathered the courage to say anything until now.

“Get on your knees.”

If she wanted to be used so badly, so be it.

She did as she was told; her movements were uncertain and awkward, burdened with the embarrassment of her own inexperience.

Scowling, he ran his fingers through the front of the girl’s bangs; he tilted her head back far enough to make her lowered eyes meet his, and levelled her gaze with the false conceit of a man who’s done this before.

“Is this what you want, you fucking pervert?” he growled under his breath.

Nervous fingers tugged at the loose ties holding up his waistband.

She does not break eye contact when she speaks.

“Tell me what to do,” she repeated.

So he does.

_Hidan had used the Fifth Rite yesterday evening, yet another elaborate ritual in dealing with the proper preparation and disposal of a sacrifice. It was unquestionably the most complicated and detailed solo ceremony listed within the Volumes, as the ritual itself was divided into several parts, taking three days and nights of progress before the light of a successful conclusion._

_Of course, Hidan never did anything even vaguely lascivious with any of these random women; performing anything of the sort during a ritual would be disrespectful to Jashin. He simply enjoyed pain. He enjoyed seeing others in pain. Because of this, whenever circumstances allowed, Hidan liked elongating his methods to get the most out of the process_

_Whenever time was on his side, he’d take it._

_Despite the multiple warnings he gave, his apprentice’s curiosity lured her to visit the corridor across the hall early the following afternoon._

_Making sure she was alone, she snuck her way towards the adjacent room until she came face-to-face with a Chakra-sealed door. Yuni carefully flattened a palm against the surface, emitting just enough of her own power to counter the force holding the door shut._

_At the end of the room, she spotted her._

_It was another young woman, a little older than herself, kneeling against the floor by the far wall, hands and ankles chained behind her to the radiator affixed at the back of the windowless room._

_The woman’s head shot up, eyes widening fearfully at the sound of the opening door. The white cloth gag tied around her mouth was stained with the gentle pink mixture of tears and blood. Strands of her long, wavy azure hair were unkempt and mislain, contrary to the well-groomed braid which formerly kept her locks in place. Her once-lively blue eyes were almost unrecognizable behind the dried lines of distressed tears running down either cheek; her face, still bloodstained from the ceremonial incisions decorating the skin under her eyes._

_‘Made with a kunai tip, no doubt.’_

_Hidan was always at his most remarkable whenever he held a blade in his hands._

_A thankful expression spread across the other woman’s face. She smiled and laughed beneath her mask whilst she struggled against her binds, encouraging the Shinobi standing before her to step forth and set her free._

_Yuni’s eyes glazed over as she observed the intricate preparations Hidan had made for the body._

_These people he chose, they were always these tall, impressive, gorgeous women with striking features and perfect hair, much more attractive than she would ever prove to be. She, on the other hand, had nothing of value to offer him. No matter how many people she killed or how many missions she completed, no matter how many rituals she performed or the impressive social statuses of those she murdered, she’d always be seen as weak in his eyes._

_Maybe that’s why he hadn’t killed her yet._

_Perhaps he didn’t think her worthy enough for sacrifice._

_Upon realizing that her potential savior hadn’t yet rushed to save her, the sounds of the victim’s half-hearted struggles faded into the silence, leaving nothing but an exchanged stare and a still silhouette standing at the doorway._

_“You should feel honored,” the kunoichi whispered, sounding resentful as she backed away and placed a hand on the corner of the door. “Hidan-sama doesn’t perform this ritual on just anyone.”_

_The woman’s eyes widened once again as light rushed from the room and the sliding door finally clicked shut._

A hand was entangled within her hair; the other, twisted within the cotton sheets sprawled out across the bed.

“Take it in again,” he ordered quietly.

She complied, pushing herself until the tip of his length bumped roughly against the back of her throat.

Hidan moved his fingers and pushed Yuni’s head down, guiding himself even deeper into the tight confine presenting itself so damned _willingly_ beneath him.

“Harder.”

Kneeling before his reclined body, she squeezed her eyes shut and drew him into her mouth even tighter than before, groaning in defeat when his hips shifted and his grip on her hair tensed; the young woman had not yet grown accustomed to the bitterness which resulted in his release.

The girl withdrew herself from between his legs the second he finished, skin flushed save for the soft shade of red tainting her face.

“I made a mess...” She glanced at the sticky white substance across the palm of her hand. “I’m starting to think I’ll never get the hang of this, Hidan-sama.”

“Of course you will, kid.”

Watching her blink in response, Hidan sat up and held his apprentice’s face in his hand, running his thumb lightly across her forehead to brush the bangs away from her sweat-slicked skin.

“Because we’re going do this over again until you get it right.”

“Of course, Sensei,” she smiled weakly. “Until you’re satisfied.”

_Yuni sat quietly by the open window the final night, watching as her mentor knelt at the foot of one of the room’s beds, his fingers gliding around the beads of his rosary whilst he murmured a hasty, complicated prayer under his breath in an archaic language she could barely understand._

_The place where the nameless woman was kept might have been laced with a soundproof barrier, but Yuni didn’t have to imagine what she would have sounded like, as she was merely the latest of many._

_She knew he loved making them scream right before they died._

_Completing his orison, the man rose to his feet and slid the rosary back over his neck._

_“Why were you watching me?” he demanded._

_“No reason, Hidan-sama.”_

_“Then fuck off.”_

_“Right, sorry...”_

_Back facing towards her, Hidan slid down the far end of the opposite futon, seating himself on the floor and away from the girl’s prying view._

_More often than not, he would stumble wearily into the room and collapse backwards onto the first available mattress. The blood from his fresh impalement wound would seep into the pastel sheets beneath him as he brought the pendant of his rosary to his lips and began praying himself to sleep, muttering, whispering, thanking Jashin for hours on end until his words melded into one another and drifted into silence. She always fell asleep listening to his prayers...yet somehow, he didn’t look as if he was going to sleep tonight._

_If he couldn’t, neither could she._

_The tension built from his latest kill was greater than she thought._

_She’d have to come up with something extraordinary._

-

Yuni withdrew a single kunai from the holster tied behind her back. She began twirling the small dagger around her fingers, watching the blade glitter innocently in the moonlight.

The most important rule of any Shinobi, in battle and in life, was to never let your opponent decipher your next move; in order to turn things to your advantage, you had to keep your adversary guessing by doing what they least expected, and by maintaining the upper hand of secrecy for as long as possible.

‘ _I know you’re counting on me to get it right this time,_ ’ she thought, keeping her back turned towards him as she pressed the kunai against her finger. ‘ _You’ll be proud once you see how much I’ve learned of you._ ’

She shut an eye, recoiling in silence when the blade pierced the surface of her skin.

Penance was much easier to pay when you knew what it was you were apologizing for.

-

The metallic _clang_ of the dropped weapon faded from Hidan’s awareness as quickly as it came. Even though his unnaturally fast healing process had already reduced his injury to a surface wound, the results of tonight’s impalement still hurt like hell; he was barely able to move as it was.

Completing the final stage of this ceremony had been an excruciatingly meticulous procedure, one which he couldn’t help but obsess over for the next few hours, reveling in the despondent afterglow. Mastering its complexity had brought him to a spiritual distress, an inner anxiety of desperation that wouldn’t disappear until the longing from another failed suicide decided to fade away on its own. The Volumes said nothing could be done until that instant came, for it was the punishment he received from God for not appreciating the gift of his immortality.

According to Jashin, he’d have to wait it out.

The sound of footsteps entered his hearing. His peripheral vision revealed his student walking across the room to approach his sitting figure.

Hidan continued staring ahead, arms resting by his sides, dry trails of crimson lining down the corners of his mouth.

To his surprise, Yuni knelt down and straddled his lap, leaning forward and resting her bare palms to the ground on either side of him. The scent of her graced his senses; she smelled like blood, she smelled like him, and it made him feel sick.

“Kid?” he prompted dryly. “What the hell are you--”

The words of objection died in his throat when she edged in closer and brushed the tip of her tongue across the overflow of blood streaming down the side of his jaw. He inhaled at first, savoring the unexpected gesture as he heard his fingernails drag unwittingly against the wooden floor below.

“I’m not letting my training lag into next month, Sensei,” she said.

It was against protocol.

“Just give me another chance,” she said.

This was the most inopportune time ever.

“Let me take care of this.”

Noticing his reluctance, she curved her back and pushed up against him, making him raise his hips and grind himself against her inner thigh despite his will. Hidan immediately folded his legs and leaned forward to try and sit up, accidentally making the girl tilt against his injured stomach in the process.

“Fucking hell...” he hissed in pain, sitting back with defeat. “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”

Yuni retracted herself.

Hidan’s unwanted expectations withered in disappointment; he felt something stir inside of him, something unsettling and crestfallen that didn’t seem to go away even after he got the reply he wanted to hear.

“Not unless you really want me to.”

He shot a knowing glare at his disciple as she blamelessly searched his expression for an answer.

“...have I told you lately how much I fucking hate you?”

She smiled. “Always nice to hear.”

Hidan sighed in defeat, looking away from her before his conscience had the chance to express any further objection. A slow smile tugged at her lip; his brow furrowed at the feel of the girl’s fingers trailing across the back of his neck, dragging hard against his skin with a different kind of longing.

The kunoichi grasped onto the neck bands of his robes and slipped the sides of his open coat down over his shoulders, exposing the tight, naked upper body lying beneath the cumbersome folds of cloth. Hidan’s cover slid down his back and draped into a pile around his leaning elbows, his heavy sleeves still motionless on resting forearms.

The girl fondled with the beads of his rosary, pulling him closer and tracing a path downwards. He could feel his pulse spike as her slender hands left the necklace and began exploring his defined torso, carefully tracing every rigid angle of his tense body. She felt his strong chest rise and fall with each one of his stabling breaths, the hypnotic cadence of his increasing heart rate guiding her hands down the freshly-bandaged marks of impalement scattered across his front, her fingers gliding over his wounded skin without the slightest hint of aversion, with nothing but the utmost sympathy.

“Don’t...” he muttered.

Not giving much observance to the plea, she continued stroking down his restless form. Laughing, he turned and breathed softly into her hair, savoring the warmth of her skin as she nuzzled her way underneath his hitai-ate’s cloth.

The wound within his chest stung him again, more painfully than before, staining the bandages he wrapped around himself to help stop the bleeding in the first place.

“Kid, seriously...” Hidan said, shifting away from her hand. “Not there.”

Pulling away from him, Yuni touched her forehead against his, watching with keening wonder as the stark-white cloth blossomed red beneath her touch.

“The ceremony...” She smeared a light press across her torn palm as his blood mixed with hers. “Did it hurt?”

“Like hell,” he grimaced. “What the fuck else is new?”

Flashing a smile, she leaned up and rested a kiss by his ear. “Good for you, Sensei.”

She gave a hard shove against his stomach, evoking his particularly stifled noise of gratification; Hidan doubled over himself and choked hard on his breath, trying his best not to reveal that the heated caress of blood pooling against his stomach combined with the biting pains surging throughout his body were only making him harder.

She might not have known much, but she sure as hell learned _quick_.

“Go to hell, kid.”

“Not without you, I’m not.”

‘ _Shit..._ ’ he thought shortly, tipping his head back as he felt those fingers go back to work and progress further south, inching nearer and nearer the area she knew he wanted them most.

To his slight disappointment, one of her hands rose to rest upon his shoulder.

To his supreme irritation, the other lowered to brush hard against his crotch.

Hidan leaned forward and buried his face within the nape of his student’s neck, mouthing urgencies against her skin as he pushed himself expectantly into her hand. She slipped her fingers underneath the tightened cloth; her loose fist ghosted over him, massaging the length hidden by the tented fabric beneath her, skin just _barely_ making contact as her hand moved up and down the sleek surface in several tormenting, fluid motions. His breathing shallowed at the generous repetition; another smooth tug had her beseeching hand coaxing him to rise to his extent.

“Fucker,” he finally snapped, his voice more labored than menacing. “You know I can’t get off like this.”

She brushed her nose across his jawline. “Do I?”

Hidan despised how helpless he felt at this point.

He fucking _hated_ it, this weird sense of vulnerability his organization honored its members for masking.

His hair was messed up, and his cloak was half-off, and beads of sweat were forming around the sides of his neck from the agonizing wait he was forced to bear, but he really didn’t give a shit anymore. Dignity was something you sacrificed in place of these situations, and that was something they both knew.

She slid down his body, adjusting her mindful stance to accompany him.

Already, he could feel the last vestiges of complex thought haplessly drifting away.

Yuni positioned herself between his legs and fumbled with the ties of his pants, carefully pulling the thick fabric down enough to expose him from beneath his boxers. She’d become almost eager at the prospect of serving him this way, pleasuring him in whichever manner he saw fit; she’d provide him with more satisfaction than the other women did, because she could provide him with the one thing the other women couldn’t.

Release, of course.

Try as he might, Hidan couldn’t seem to keep his eyelids lifted long enough to watch what she did next, fearing that the sight alone would push him over the edge.

He isn’t thinking of Jashin when he feels his student’s nervous breath on him, cooling the sweat from the surface of his heated skin.

He isn’t thinking of _religious boundaries_ when the shivering mixture of hot and cold spreads through him like wildfire and makes his affirmation grow hurried.

Yuni took a deep inhale and bravely wrapped a hand around tight enough to keep him in place, glancing back up favorably when she noticed the small gush of clear fluid already secreting from the tip. “Does this mean I’ve perfected my training?”

“God _damn_ it, kid...” he growled. “Would you stop fucking stalling and just-- _nngh_...”

She started from the bottom, stroking her warm, curious tongue across his entirety.

His breath hitched sharply at the contact, the indulgence sending quivers up his spine.

Her grasp on the base of his shaft tightened whilst she took her time exploring his considerable length, gently dragging upon the underside and letting her soft tongue roam where it may. Drawing her teeth against his skin on a deliberately playful upstroke, she finally reached to suckle the sensitive top, clearing the flow of pre-cum trickling from the tip of his head.

His hand reached down and followed its familiar path, grasping at his student’s hair and pushing a closed fist against the back of her neck. She shifted down without waiting for his lead, taking in as much of him as she could, until he brushed hard against the entrance of her throat. Surprised by the enthusiasm, Hidan accidentally bit his tongue, feeling the girl tremble beneath him whilst the hardened skin pulsed between her lips. His fingers clenched within her hair as he felt her force intensify; she slid him in and out, that warm, tight mouth of hers engulfing him, somehow managing to swallow him whole. It takes him a moment to recognize the sounds echoing within the room as his own.

Her bangs tapped against the surface of his inner thigh as she bobbed her head _agonizingly_ slow, which was right when she started doing something with her tongue that made him moan under his breath and his hold on her tighten further. She certainly seemed to be enjoying herself; those tiny shifts her body made, those little giggles resonating down him in the most _wonderful_ way...

Then, for some demented, sadistic reason, she stopped.

“Do you like how it feels, Sensei?”

He stalled for a moment, but nodded vigorously, trying to call attention back to his rudely forgotten--

Appeasing him at once, that maddening mouth of hers was on him again, teasing up and down the sides; he could basically _feel_ that devious smile forming against him. “Then why won’t you look at me?”

A second or two of reluctant silence passed before Hidan finally glanced down and saw those glistening eyes of hers look up, searching his own for the slightest sign of approval. He couldn’t remember whether or not his expression gave her the reaction she wanted, but whatever it was made her take him in again.

Yuni kept her own vision half-lidded, loving how the scarlet tainted her mentor’s face as he continued guiding her, watching her every move.

A blush was just one of those things you couldn’t hide.

Suddenly, an odd, unfamiliar tightness began coiling within the pit of her stomach: something resembling eagerness, but not as easy to repress. She pressed her knees together, cold sweatdrops sliding from her temple as she tried her hardest to ignore the strange warmth growing between her thighs; that look on his face, those _sounds_ he kept making-- _she_ was making him do that.

_Her._

Wrapped up in her own visions, she unknowingly slipped her tongue along the length of his slit.

By the way his hips practically bucked underneath her, she knew she must’ve done something right.

Hidan tilted his head back and ran off into an unintelligible string of profanity, consumed by the feel of himself disappearing and reappearing inside of her. He pulled her head down to press himself inside even further, making her take him in to the hilt; he drew nothing short of whines from her, whines which vibrated across his length as she suppressed a choke, allowing him to press forward until he was halfway down her goddamned throat. Obedient as always, she followed the pace he set with his hand, pushing herself faster as he continued guiding the timing of her motions, escalating until he could feel the swiftness of his own climax approaching.

Making sure to skirt the gag reflex with every fibre of her being, she felt his hips jerk suddenly, and she braced herself for his release.

Her grip on him tightened as she followed his careful instructions to carry it though, her anticipative moans amplifying his own staggering climb to ecstasy. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood; a shiver started at the base of his spine and made his mind go white, wave after wave of delirium pulsing and beating and _radiating_ throughout every curve of his body. He reared his head back and came on a stifled noise ripped from the depths of his being; the girl’s tongue continued touching welcomingly against him as he emptied himself into her, the muscles in the back of her throat contracting and releasing with each swallow.

Flawless.

An exhale of satisfaction escaped him as the swelling tides of pleasure receded to the point of comprehension; his expression relaxed and he tipped his head forward to rest the back of his neck against the bedside. He felt his student whimper quietly against him as his unconscious grip on her hair relaxed with the rest of his body. He didn’t make eye contact for the next few seconds, looking down only when his heartbeat steadied and his hearing fully returned.

“ _Haa_...” he breathed, eyelids heavy over a violet gaze as he glanced back down at the girl posed between his legs. “Not...not bad, kid.”

Tugging his pants back up around his waist, the kunoichi withdrew herself from the tip of his still-warm erection, blushing as a viscid thread of saliva and semen trailed off the edge of her tongue. She sat up and wiped the corner of her mouth with a bloodied thumb, then proceeded to teasingly lick her finger clean.

She winked. “Always a pleasure, Sensei.”

The very sight of it drove him feral.

His racing mind still clear of rational thought, Hidan sat up and grabbed the young woman’s hand into his own.

Startled by his actions, Yuni froze within his aggressive embrace, reluctant to hold onto him the way she so desired; to have his hair between her fingers, to take in his scent, to press him up against her chest and feel exactly what else that energetic mouth of his could do.

Instead, she followed his lead as he strengthened his contact and pinned her to the ground, turning her around and forcefully clasping her wrists behind her back.

Hidan seemed to have forgotten how sore his body really was at the moment, or how desperately those bandages of his still needed changing, but these arrant urges had spun almost entirely out of his control.

“Send me a line.”

“Wh--”

“I’m not asking twice.”

Yuni nodded quickly, before a long, glowing blue thread left the end of her index finger.

Pulling on the radiant thread, Hidan wrapped it tightly around her wrists, taking the remaining length and looping it twice around her neck, leaving her shackled and on a leash with the same line. The tautness of the line itself prevented her from breaking away; the more she moved, the tighter his grasp around the thread became.

There was a pause of concern between them before Hidan decided to continue, dipping his head lower to meet the crook of his victim’s neck. The coolness of his expelled breath played down her exposed skin as he bared his teeth against her shoulder, tongue dragging along until her anxious shudders became so obvious it was pathetic.

She found herself on her back in an instant.

Hidan had abandoned the rest of his cloak entirely. He held his hands against the floor on either side of Yuni’s head, propping himself up as his hips pressed hard against hers to hold her in place beneath him. The beads of his rosary clinked against the metal plate of his hitai-ate, its cold circular pendant dangling over the girl’s neckline.

Yuni’s hands clenched into one another as he pulled even harder on the leash. The white-hot sensation seared into her wrists and neck and hurt terribly, burning into her flesh as her unconscious struggles to ease the scorching proved futile. The strange haze which accompanied the pain earned a flustered groan from the girl; the conflicting contrast of pleasure against pain only made to intensify the former, an uncertain, exciting, dangerous feeling she was too dizzy to make heads or tails of.

Her silent panting only shallowed when his voice breathed darkly by her ear.

“You’re _really_ fucking pushing it, aren’t you?”

Catching the opportunity like the expert she was meant to be, Yuni shifted beneath him, sharply pressing her inner thigh against the renewed half-arousal he thought she wouldn’t notice. Hidan shut his eyes and grimaced from the sudden force, hissing through clenched teeth as he hung his neck and lowered his head by hers.

She closed her eyes and touched her cheek against his. “Oops.”

Hidan pulled out a polished kunai from the weaponry holster tied behind his disciple’s back. The metal’s glint reflected against his eyes as he waved the weapon in front of her.

“Kid, I’m going to need you to hold still.”

She remained unflinching as the blade hovered close to her throat. “How much blood am I losing this time?”

“Depends,” he said casually, his unoccupied fingers brushing strands of stray hair from her cheek with fallacious affection.

“On what?”

“On how much I feel like taking.”

He pressed the end of the blade against her skin, tipping her chin up with the point of the kunai.

She moved to slip her head lower.

Yuni kept her eyes trained on him as she stuck her tongue out, licking across the sharp edge of the blade, wincing as it sliced across the surface of her skin. The resulting gush of crimson trickled down the length of her tongue, spilling in thin rivers across her cheeks.

He laughed at the sight.

He does not kiss her, she knows, because she is not worthy.

She shut her eyes and waited for him to make his mark.

All he did was smile.


	2. Anniversary (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on releasing the next installment as one massive chapter. I changed my mind once the wordcount hit 12k without the chapter itself being anywhere near half-finished.
> 
> Here’s part one of the Anniversary arc.
> 
> This takes place several months after the previous chapter.
> 
> In other news, check it out! Art: <http://please-notice-me-sensei.tumblr.com/tagged/art> Follow for more soft yandere.

Liquid red poured from the corners of Hidan’s mouth, the rivers of dark scarlet gushing through his clenched teeth. His pitch-black hands choked a sleek length of steel and shoved it further through himself, piercing through layers of muscle and organ and fat— _deeper, deeper, deeper_ —until it jabbed the inside of his back and his skin gave way to the point of the blade.

His nameless opponent clutched at his own chest and coughed up blood.

Hidan’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. “So _f--fucking_ fantastic.”

A few yards away, a young woman faced off with another mercenary at the scene. The short metal bar she carried sported a curved blade at one end, and a long, weighted chain affixed at the other. Her enemy was fast, but she was faster: a side-step and a flick of the wrist was all it took to slide the edge of her kusarigama across his abdomen.

She yanked her weapon from his body. Blood sprayed across her arms.

The last of the group tried to get away, but she gave chase, her cloak whipping behind her. The weight at the end of her weapon’s chain tore through the air. A sharp _clang_ echoed with his kunai’s deflection.

She twitched her fingers.

The weight maneuvered with Chakra lines she’d attached to it; its pathway spiraled backwards and wrapped the chain around her opponent’s arm.

A swift series of hand seals followed.

“ _Raiton: Tsukikage!_ ”

Flashes of lightning shot down the Chakra lines, and the man’s body was immediately wracked with violent convulsions. His arms jerked at his sides. His head twitched at his shoulder. Sick, off-white foam bubbled from his lips as he stared into depths of nothing with the seizure-whites of his eyes.

Yanking the chain around his forearm, she rushed forward to catch him with her blade.

He was dead before the final blows, but she’d double-tap, just to make sure.

Her nerves only settled after her opponent’s body slumped to the ground. Deep, calming breaths filled the hollow of her chest, replacing warm rushes of adrenaline with cool swells of air. Blood rolled down her arms and soaked into the thick of her gloves. She doesn’t notice the grin on her face until it fades.

A small part of her hoped her teacher had seen.

Said part of her died when she noticed Hidan still enveloped in his own ecstasy, the black-and-white patterns of his ritual vanishing from his skin like veins of ink bleeding in reverse.

He withdrew the pike from his body and cackled like a madman.

Yuni rubbed her temple, smearing the dead stranger’s blood across her forehead in the process. “That cloak of yours gets us into so much trouble, Hidan-sama.”

With a loud snort, Hidan gathered the blood pooling at the back of his throat, and spit it aside. “You knew what you were getting into when you signed on with me, kid. Suck it up.”

“But why do you have such a high bounty on your head, anyway? What kind of organization are you even a _part_ of?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, seriously.” Still inside his Circle, he seated himself on the ground. “And how about a fucking ‘thank you’? I just served you fresh sacrifices on a silver platter. Perform your ritual and be grateful, for fuck’s sake.”

“Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?”

Yuni knelt down and lifted her ex-opponent’s half-charred, half-flayed corpse into a fireman’s carry.

“Be—because,” she strained. “I have a new target.”

Hidan lifted an eyebrow. “Who?”

“My village has been on a certain Ambassador’s tail for months now. He’s been convicted of enough war crimes to warrant a kill-on-sight order, and they think he might be hiding somewhere in this area.”

She carried the body to another corpse, dropping one on top of the other with a _thud_. The third body she went for was partially disemboweled. She carried it bridal-style to prevent spillage.

“See these symbols on their sleeves?” She swung the body so its arm dangled in front of her; its exposed intestines squished against the inside of her elbow. “They’re his agents, which means I’m close. My team was only sent down here to investigate some rumors, but if I can take care of this on my own? They might just make me a Jounin.”

Guts poking unceremoniously out of her cargo’s split abdomen, Yuni smiled at Hidan, searching for the slightest bit of praise.

“…is _that_ why I had to meet you outside this shithole excuse of a town?”

She deflated.

“Ah, yeah, that’s why.” She tossed the body on top of the others. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

Finally, Yuni grabbed the arm of the mercenary Hidan impaled by proxy. She dragged it over to the pile, too.

Hidan turned up his nose. “What are you _doing_ with those, you freak? Just leave ‘em to rot.”

“It’s hard to complete a stealth mission if I’m leaving a trail of bodies behind me. Bodies belonging to employees of my target, no less.”

“Ugh, do whatever you want. Never understood how people can be so nonchalant about handling corpses, it’s fucking disgusting.”

“I just want my promotion.”

“Screw promotions. It’s easier to dedicate your life to Jashin-sama without a village tying you down with hierarchical bullshit.”

“Not all of us are strong enough to become runaways, Sensei.”

“You want some advice on getting stronger? Stop being so fucking slow. Anyone who fights you for more than five seconds will be able to map your movements, seriously.”

“Understood. But you really don’t need to worry about me.” She offered another smile, giving a subtle nudge to the mercenaries she killed on her own. “I can fend for myself pretty well, you know.”

“Tell that to the scar through your chest.”

She froze.

Taking another deep breath, she chose her next words with care.

“That was a long time ago,” she said. “I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”

“Sure you are.” He stretched his arms above his head. “What’s with this lightning shit all of a sudden, anyway? I didn’t know you had training with your affinity.”

Standing near the stack of bodies, Yuni tied Chakra lines around the loops of a few kunai. “With all due respect, Sensei, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

“With all due respect, _kid_ , I’m sure there ain’t a whole lot to know. You’re an open book, seriously.”

“Is that so?”

“Damn straight.”

“Then what’s my family name?”

He gaped for a moment. “Well then, smartass, what’s _mine_?”

She laughed. “I have no idea.”

One by one, Yuni threw the handful of kunai around the corpse pile, forming a circle in the ground.

Hidan didn’t stick around long enough to find out what she was doing.

“Whatever,” he muttered, adjusting the pike in his chest so he could lie down flat on his back. “Fucking weirdo.”

Away from Hidan’s line of sight, Yuni slid her fingers down her chest, absently touching the uneven scars beneath the fabric of her dress as if to make sure they were still there.

He was already in a trance when she performed her hand seals. 

-

The sky was black when he woke. The taste of metal stained his tongue while dried blood made the sides of his mouth feel taut. His impalement wound pulsed with the familiar dull, aching soreness of his body attempting to repair itself, seeing as the metal spike still lodged his chest made the healing process difficult.

Through the flood of fresh sensations, however, one thing stood out.

“…why do I smell barbeque?”

As expected, his apprentice was kneeling by his side.

“Oh, you’re awake!” she smiled, leaning over him. Her grey eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Sorry about the smell. I needed to get rid of the bodies.”

“…so you fucking _barbequed_ them?”

“Kinda?” She scratched her cheek. “I used one of my lightning Jutsu to form a small field until they were mostly disintegrated, then I buried the remains. It creates less smoke and draws less attention. Difficult smell to get out of your hair, though.”

“Kid, that’s _seriously_ fucked up.” He leaned up and yanked the pike from his body, wincing as blood poured from the wound. “How many times have you done this, exactly?”

Yuni opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again.

She held her chin and looked into the distance as she mouthed numbers under her breath.

“Never mind, I don’t wanna know.” Reaching into his cloak, he pulled out a small bag and tossed it at her. “You need a fucking shower, you smell like burnt asshole and it’s gross as hell.”

Yuni caught the package. It was a clear plastic bag, filled with miniature spheres of sugar candy dyed various shades of blue and green. A thin silk rope tied the bag closed. On the front of the package were tiny stickers of branded cartoon characters. It was adorable.

(She was scared.)

“…um.”

“You said you liked them once.”

“I do! Konpeito’s my favourite.”

“ _Tch_ , so what’s with the face?”

“N—nothing, this is just…sweet.”

“No shit, it’s fucking candy.”

Her ears went red as she untied the bag. “I meant it was very kind of you to remember something like that. Thank you.”

“Oh.” For a split-second, he looked sheepish. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Since her hands were dirty, Yuni tipped the open bag into her mouth.

Leaning on an arm, Hidan examined the forest clearing, but found no sign of burnings or burials. He didn’t know if it was the influence of her career or her dedication to their religion that was desensitizing her to the gore of her kills, but she’d changed since they first met. During her baptism, she could barely watch him press kunai against her skin without vomiting out of nervousness—now, she was snacking carefree after electrocuting several corpses to dust and bone. The smell of her had changed, gradually, from earth and laundered clothing to blood and candy.

A piece of konpeito fell into the crook of her elbow, getting stuck in the press of blood her enemy’s guts left on her skin.

Hers wasn’t a scent he wanted lodged in his memory, but he couldn’t tear himself away from it.

“Kid, I need to talk to you about something.”

Her mouth was already full of sweets. “Hrm?”

“…will you stop stuffing your face for three fucking seconds?

She nodded.

She then tried not to make noise by chewing _really slowly_.

“Fucking swallow, already!”

Looking incredulous, Yuni pushed the candy to one side of her mouth, making her cheek stick out. “Jeez, Sensei--you really got a thing for swallowing, don’t you?”

He reached over for his weapon and knocked the back of his scythe against the top of her head. She spit-sprayed a rainbow of candy everywhere.

“Alright, already--jeez!” She rubbed her head. “I’m listening!”

“It’s been a year since you’ve been baptized,” he said, dropping his scythe. He raised his hands lazily. “ _Omedetou_.”

“Wait…” she whispered, glancing down at the bag in her hands. Her eyes grew wide. “Was I supposed to get you something, too?”

“No, I just thought I’d do something nice for you. Seriously, I’m such a thoughtful teacher, aren’t I?”

(Her laughter was half-hearted.)

“The point is we’ve been at this for a while. Sooo…” He made a rolling hand gesture. “I want you to help me out with more advanced rituals from now on.”

“ _Really_?” Still kneeling, she shuffled closer to him. “You mean like the Ceremony of Triads? Or Perdition’s Observance? No, wait, I’ve actually been really curious about how I’m supposed to interpret the ritual for Chapter 17, Passage 62—like, when it mentions ‘embracing duality of evisceration,’ does that mean two at once, or is it a more philosophical take on the abstraction of—”

“I was thinking more along the lines of The Seventh Rite.”

“I’m surprised you have that much faith in me,” she laughed, uneasy, “but I’ll do my best! We’ll need a tribute to Jashin-sama, though. Did you have someone in mind?”

The following silence built an invisible wall between them, another brick stacking on brick with each passing second.

Yuni blanched, every bit of her excitement shriveling as if had caught fire.

She was the first to break eye contact. “I’m not sure I can do that, Hidan-sama.”

Clicking his tongue, he heaved an exaggerated sigh and folded his arms. “And why the fuck not? The biggest obstacle is keeping the tribute alive long enough to finish all three stages. You and I won’t have that problem.”

“Shouldn’t I _practice_ before doing something like that with you?”

“I’ve seen you do crazy shit to people without batting an eye, what makes this any different?”

“What’s different is that they’re not _you_ ,” she said firmly. “I’m not praying to Jashin-sama for a successful kill, this time—I’m performing a full-blown _Rite_ for Him. If I do something wrong, or mess something up, wouldn’t the consequences be—”

“I strongly doubt even you could fuck it up that badly.”

“But I don’t have a lot of experience with… _you know_ …” She unknowingly mirrored his hand-rolling gesture. “ _That_ kind of stuff. There’s an art to those techniques, Hidan-sama, the discipline necessary for executing Rites is more within your field of expertise, I wouldn’t even know where to—”

“ _Yuni-chaaaaaaaaan_.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on top of her head. “I need another Jashinist for this. Shut up, stop worrying, and help out your Sensei. Alright?”

For the second time that evening, Yuni froze.

Her forehead rested against his neck as the beads of his rosary kissed her cheek. When he spoke, his words rumbled in his throat, and the hum of his voice surfaced against her skin. Her breaths rolled down his chest and clouded the metal of his pendant; his scent was familiar, and comforting, laced with the heavy edge of copper from the half-open wound still gaping through his chest.

He was so close.

‘ _One of the rare times he actually uses my name, and it’s over something like this?_ ’

(So _close._ )

“…kid?”

His blood was dripping on her lap. Her blood was rushing to her head.

Trembling against her will, she found herself reeling when he pulled away.

“Hey, are you feeling alright?” he asked, raising a brow at her. “You look like a fucking radish.”

“I’ll study the text,” she said. She covered her reddening face with both hands. “I--I’ll study the text and I’ll figure something out.”

Yuni squeezed an eye shut as Hidan ruffled a heavy hand through her hair.

“Now _that’s_ what I wanna fucking hear.”

His nose always wrinkled when he grinned.

She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she let it go.

\---

After the conclusion of one of his monthly religious pilgrimages, Hidan informed the rest of the Akatsuki that he had discovered a source: an insider from Konoha who could provide him with valuable information about the village, such as its current political climate, various infiltration techniques, and the general whereabouts of its Jinchuuriki. All it took was for Hidan and his informant to meet face-to-face, and alone.

Pein allowed Hidan to continue gathering, a decision only reinforced when every bit of information Hidan brought back appeared to check out perfectly.

Therefore, for a few days every month or so, Hidan would catch a ride with Deidara to a different meeting place. Kakuzu spent the majority of his partner’s absence collecting bounties in peace. Not having to stop for rituals after every battle sped up the process, but not having to hear Hidan complain was just a bonus.

Yet, Hidan was not a man known for his subtlety, let alone for his ability to gather information. Hidan refused to disclose the identity of a source who gave away confidential information for free—to say Kakuzu was suspicious was an understatement.

Thankfully, Pein agreed.

Deidara was sure to return with coordinates of where Hidan’s so-called ‘pilgrimages’ took him. Only a few trips were needed to cross-reference Hidan’s movements with other tracked patterns at Kakuzu’s disposal, revealing Hidan’s travels lined up with reports of recent Leaf-nin activity. Contrary to what Kakuzu first thought, Hidan’s source wasn’t some sleazy information salesman or scared-shitless civilian—they were a full-fledged Konoha Shinobi.

No one in this world gained information without offering something of equal value in return.

What kind of price was Hidan paying?

-

Hidan had been acting smug all damned month, even moreso than usual. Things that usually pissed him off, like the missions Pein assigned and Kakuzu’s sarcastic remarks about Hidan’s time-consuming ceremonies, didn’t irk the man as much as they used to. When asked what had him so upbeat all of a sudden, Hidan brushed the question off with a rehearsed line about finding ‘divine inspiration’ on his last trip, and how they, being heathens and all, had no idea what they were missing out on.

“Your last trip took twice as long as you estimated,” Kakuzu muttered from behind his book. “It put a setback in Pein’s timeline.”

“Like that bastard gives a shit,” Hidan scoffed, shrugging his cloak on. “Seriously, feed him something like Konoha’s bi-seasonal guard rotation schedule and he forgets anything ever happened.”

“...you managed to get that?”

“I told you assholes my source was legit. Seriously, it seems like the only support I even get around here is from Pinhead. You know, you’re a really shitty teammate, Kakuzu.”

“We have responsibilities that need tending to. I can’t afford to have you disappear for five days without warning.”

“Relax, old man. I’m only going to be gone for four this time, seriously.”

“Three. And if you’re late again, I’ll retrieve you myself.”

“Awww, Kakuzu. If you missed me so much, why didn’t you just say so? I’m touched, seriously.”

Kakuzu glanced up from his book. The intensity of his glare would have killed a more mortal man.

Hidan held his hands up in a pacifying manner as he headed for the door. “I’m kidding, lighten up. Can you give me an earful about this shit when I get back? I’m already running late.”

“Hidan.”

“Yeah?”

After not receiving a response, Hidan turned around.

“Well, what is it?”

As Kakuzu continued reading, the corner of his mask wrinkled in what Hidan could have _sworn_ was a smirk.

“Have fun.”

Hidan had to shake off the shiver down his spine.

“More than you’ll ever know,” he drawled, walking out and shutting the door behind him. “Creepy son of a…”

 _Click_.

 ---

The air of the inn room was thick with the scent of soap and the warmth of steam.

Yuni sat at the edge of one of the futons, the bottom of her feet sticking to the hardwood floor. She’d changed into more casual clothes after her shower: a conservative, kimono-style blouse with a thick sash around the waist, paired with a form-fitting skirt that went just past her knees. All different shades of black, of course. No need for the clean-up to be more of a hassle than necessary.

“Do you have the prayer memorized?” Hidan shouted from the bathroom.

She perked up. “Y--yes, Sensei!”

Her fists clenched at her skirt while he continued his shower.

‘ _Why does this feel like that kind of first time all of a sudden??_’

This wasn’t the first time they’d shared a room, but that’s how these things started, right? Each person takes a shower after renting a private suite. Then the guy saunters out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, and he seduces the girl, asking a whole bunch of careful, romantic questions along the way, like ‘is this okay?’ and ‘can I touch you here?’ and ‘does it feel good?’. Of course, the only points of reference Yuni had were from the love interests buried in the dirty stories at the back of the bookstore. Hidan wasn’t nearly as gentle as the men in those tales. She wondered what words he’d use if he had the chance.

The possibilities made her go red.

It’s not like she _hadn’t_ thought about him that way before. Several months ago, he’d started entrusting her with a very intimate favour, something they’d revisited once or twice between then and now—and still, every session would leave her aching in places she had to force out of her thoughts. Even now, just remembering the look on his face when she was between his legs stirred something weird and warm inside her stomach.

She buried her face in her hands. This definitely wasn’t the time to think about that.

Sexual acts _themselves_ weren’t forbidden by Jashin—what was prohibited was any form of intercourse that lead to procreation, since the act contradicted the religion’s primary philosophy of total destruction. Pregnancy was considered the ultimate blasphemy: it was a necessary evil that served as a constant reminder of how the sins of man and his only means of survival would forever separate heaven and earth. Over time, however, restrictions on ‘traditional’ intercourse evolved into a broader ban on ‘any form of penetration.’

In short, girls who liked girls must have had it easy.

“Sensei, why couldn’t you have been a girl?” she mumbled into her hands.

“Pretty sure tits would get in the way of being shirtless.”

She jumped. Hidan was towering over her, wearing nothing but a pair of loose, black pants. A towel hung over his shoulder. His hair was still damp.

Yuni gaped at him, blushing.

He knocked her on the head with his scythe.

“Stop imagining me with tits.”

“I wasn’t!” she lied. “Jeez—how do you draw that weapon so _fast_??”

“Unfaltering dedication to Jashin-sama gives me a speed bonus. Seriously, didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to stare?”

“Nah, my mother’s dead.”

“Yours and half the country’s, kid—I ain’t weeping for you, seriously.”

She shrugged. “You _did_ mention I was slow in fights, though. Does that mean my dedication to Jashin-sama isn’t unfaltering enough?”

Hidan put a hand on his shoulder and rolled his arm. “We’re about see that, aren’t we?”

A light, anxious blush spread across Yuni’s face while he continued stretching in preparation.

‘ _Don’t think about his hands in your hair._ ’

He raised his arms above his head and the muscles in his back grew taut.

‘ _Don’t think about him pushing his hips against you._ ’

His pants slipped to reveal the top of his waist, showing just a little skin more than they should.

‘ _Don’t think about the noise he makes when he finishes._ ’

Hidan’s head lulled to the side as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Ready?”

She swallowed hard, trying to skirt the sensation ever-rising in the pit of her stomach. “Should we have a codeword?”

“…a codeword? What for?”

“In case I do something I’m not supposed to. In case I go too far.”

He folded his arms. “You’re really getting cocky, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to sound arrogant, Sensei.”

“No, no, I like it.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s keep it simple. ‘Stop’ means stop, and it’s the only word that does. Got it?”

“Understood.”

“Now.” Hidan stepped to stand in the middle of the room. He tossed his towel in her face. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

She folded the towel and placed it aside before getting to her feet.

Yuni had an arsenal prepped in the storage pouches tied around her waist—kunai, senbon, shuriken, tags of all kinds—but she was beginning to question her decision to not plan for anything in particular. If she were to structure the Rite too carefully, she thought, he’d be able to tell. Her movements would be too methodical. Too lifeless. Too boring. The proof of her conviction had to be more spontaneous than that.

She held his hand, and pulled out a kunai.

She decided she would have to feel him out—step by step, second by second—and follow wherever his pulse guided her.

Just she did during like her last training.

The sharp edge of her metal drew gently across his wrist. Blood bubbled through the slice, sending droplets down his forearm.

“Seriously?” he muttered. “I’ve had papercuts worse than this.”

She winced.

There were two rules she was asked to abide by out of consideration for the nature of his healing: don’t sever anything completely off, and don’t take anything completely out. He left her in charge of preparing him as a tribute to Jashin—yet, as dedicated as she tried to be, she couldn’t shake her hesitance to cause him pain. Her thoughts offered reassurance, but her hands wouldn’t listen. Her fingers were already trembling.

Bracing herself for disapproval, Yuni glanced up.

He wasn’t even looking at her.

Hidan stared aimlessly into the distance, his bright eyes half-lidded.

The corner of Yuni’s eye twitched.

He was _daydreaming_.

He wasn’t insulted, he was _bored_.

All at once, her focus snapped into place.

Her hands didn’t shake when she used the point of her kunai to tip his cheek in her direction.

“Sensei,” she started, slowly, “please keep your eyes on me.”

“Jeez, kid,” he sneered. “You seriously got a thing for me watching, don’t you?”

She leveled his gaze until his smirk faltered.

Her kunai slid into his arm, twisting below the surface of his skin before tearing out. Warmth from a freshly-severed artery flooded across her forearm, but she resisted the urge to ask if he was okay.

“Gehahaha,” he laughed, voice breathy. “That’s more like it.”

Yuni made a motion with her bare foot, smooth and swift, to draw a ceremonial circle across the hardwood floor. The geometry ended up looking sloppy, nowhere near as clear and symmetrical as Hidan somehow managed in the middle of battle. She decided not to think about it. He did have much more practice, after all.

He sat in the center of his own bloodmark. She knelt between his legs, sitting on her knees as her calves slipped and scuffed on the smudged red beneath her.

“You need to be branded,” she said shortly.

“Don’t suppose you’re hiding iron pokers in that bag of yours.”

“Nah, I’m just happy to see you.”

He snickered.

The kunai in her hand was still dripping with his blood.

Her fingers danced the knife against his skin, every gentle movement flowing with precision and certainty. Scarlet sprouted in thin lines as words blossomed across his surface.

飛段先生.

飛段先生.

Her blade was sharp. Her cuts were clean. She etched her writing up his arms, across his chest, down his neck, along his shoulders, until no exposed part of him was left ungraced by the remnants of her feather-light touch.

飛段先生. 飛段先生. 飛段先生. 飛段先生. 飛段先生. 飛段先生.

Blood from his forehead dripped into his eyes, blurring the kanji until he could no longer see, until only jutting sensations kept him company. His apprentice called on him, over and over, and every echo felt different from the last—his name was a soft whisper, a teasing murmur, a piercing sigh into his skin, her intonations changing with her handwriting.

Eventually, her blade left him, and he blinked the red screen from his eyes to behold her work.

“Fancy,” he mused. “You don’t happen to come from a clan of tattoo artists, do you?”

“Calligraphers.”

He dragged his tongue up his wrist. “That why you have such nice handwriting?”

Yuni’s breath caught in her throat. His blood was on her hands, but his smile calmed her heartbeat.

Unblinking, she watched his tongue slide across his skin. She squeezed her thighs together.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“You can do better,” he replied.

He doesn’t recognize the glint in her eye, but it excites him.

Yuni looked over his body—her work—admiring her script on his skin.

“You’re left-handed,” she said, finally.

“You noticed.”

“I’m a calligrapher, remember?” A small smile spread across her face. She held up his left hand. “Move your hand for me?”

Raising an eyebrow, Hidan flexed his fingers against hers.

She pouted. “No good.”

Her blade was just a little duller than before.

“Your dominant hand is what you use to interact with everything around you. To touch, to pray, to wield your weapon against the heathens of this world. Jashin-sama cherishes this hand. You serve as His tribute, so we’ll prepare it for Him properly.”

She began to pray out loud.

She shoved the kunai into his wrist, and he gasped a curse; the sound of his strain made her bury it further, deeper, until the dagger shoved hard against bone. His breathing stuttered as she started making sawing motions with the blade, cutting a deep circle around his wrist, the point of the kunai jabbing and chipping bone with every reentry. One of her hands held up his own, her grasp gentle, and delicate; her other hand continued working in full force, awash with blood, slicing back and forth until the skin of his hand and the skin of his arm were separated. His hand shivered violently against his will, but she held it steady (and delicate, and gentle). For a reason his mind wasn’t clear enough to fathom, she dug the tip of her kunai into his hand and maneuvered it around and around, tearing through his tendons like snapped elastic, bits of flesh tumbling from his gaping avulsion.

“I’ll make it quick, Sensei,” she whispered in the middle of her prayer, near-expressionless save for her smile. “Just like a band-aid.”

She buried her fingers inside his wound, and ripped the skin from his hand.

A choked scream was torn from his throat, tapering off with clenched teeth and hissed euphoric laughter. His legs bent and straightened—one, then the other—the bottom of his feet slipping across his own smeared blood in his half-efforts to stand. She yanked the last bit from each of his fingertips, one by one, the glove-like portion of skin tearing from him, whole. His right hand clenched her arm so tightly the crescent imprints of his nails made her bleed. A spatter of his blood caught the corner of her mouth. He bared his teeth, gritting them in pain, but the edges of his lips curled into a wild smile.

She took in the expression on his face, the way his body squirmed and twisted under her hand.

Her empty breaths carried the ghost of her laughter.

_Watch me, Sensei. Watch me. Watch me._

She felt so _warm_.

“It came off so smoothly, Hidan-sama,” she said. Her voice wavered, just a little. “Look at that.”

She took her blade to him once more and tore through whatever remained, carving off muscles and nerves like meat from his bones. The kunai tip grinded into more delicate spots to get every last part of him clean; he could feel pain, he could feel pressure, and then, nothing.

Yuni reached for the towel he’d thrown at her, and wiped the blood from what was left of his hand. Little more than bone and cartilage remained.

“Move your hand again for me?” she asked.

“…can’t.”

“Good.” She smiled hazily as she cradled his polished bones against her cheek. “Hidan-sama, look how clean it is. Do you think this is what God’s hand looks like?”

The last thing he saw before slipping into his trance was her, blood-stained and beaming.

She laid him down inside his Circle, and dropped her knife with a _clatter_.

Yuni crawled backwards so quickly she tripped over the futon behind her.

She covered her mouth and tried her hardest not to hyperventilate. There was blood, everywhere. The warmth in her stomach was painful. There were pieces of him, everywhere. She pulled hard at the front of her skirt, trying to apply pressure to parts of herself she was failing to force from her thoughts.

It took a while for her hands to stop shaking.

-

Hidan woke to a weary apprentice, and a familiar hand wrapped tightly around his.

As expected, Yuni was seated next to him, hugging her knees.

“You’re awake,” she smiled, shadows under her eyes.

“Unfortunately,” he said groggily.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like there’s static in my hand. How long was I out?”

“Six hours. You heal quickly.”

He flexed the pins and needles from his newly-regenerated left hand. The ring he left on the bathroom counter was back around his finger. His branded names were now faded marks that would be gone by morning. The floors, and his body, had been wiped clean. A mountain of red towels were piled in the corner. Dark spots stained the black of Yuni’s outfit.

He glanced at where their hands met and realized she wasn’t wearing gloves. The tips of her fingers were wrinkled and discolored; he wondered why he hadn’t noticed before.

“Oi,” he muttered, voice gruff, “what’s wrong with your hands?”

“Chakra lines and I don’t get along.” With her free hand, she twisted open a small black bottle sitting on the floor next to her. “The burns got worse after I began training with lightning.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about leaving fingerprints.”

“Maybe, but. My hands aren’t nice to look at anymore.” She took his left hand and started repainting his nails. “They’re nothing like yours.”

“Yeah? And what are mine like?”

“Smoother than I thought they’d be, considering how heavy your weapon is.”

“Can’t form calluses when your body heals to square one. It’s a pain in the ass, re-chafing the same skin every day.”

“Maybe you should start wearing gloves.”

“What, so I can look like you? No fucking thank you.”

Giggling, she stuck her tongue out at him. She continued stroking the black polish against his fingernails, trying to hide the way she refused to meet his eyes again.

“…do you find them ugly, Hidan-sama?”

Hidan turned to look at the ceiling.

“Your hands serve Jashin-sama. They’re just as good as mine.” He held her hand a little tighter. “Who gives a shit what they look like?”

Silence didn’t have a chance to form between the quiet murmur of late-night inn residents chattering downstairs, and the sound of her blowing softly on his nails.

He pretended not to notice her raising his hand too close to her mouth and touching her lips to his ring.

She pretended not to notice him smirking.


	3. Bounty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place just before the bar scene in chapter one.
> 
> Check out Yuni's Tumblr!
> 
> <http://please-notice-me-sensei.tumblr.com>
> 
> There's porn.

Kakuzu donned a different overcoat to ensure his colours wouldn’t be recognized in the area, a worry his teammate across the bar didn’t seem to pay much attention to.

The obnoxious giggles of his partner’s most recent target sent prickles of aggravation through Kakuzu’s nerves. Far be it from him to judge how Hidan spent his time with the women he paid for, but the fact his teammate could turn his charm on and off at will was a neverending source of ire.

Hidan could’ve been perfectly pleasant company, he just chose not to be.

Still unnoticed by his teammate, Kakuzu kept his arms folded as he glanced at the person seated in the stool beside him.

When Hidan mentioned he’d located someone from Konoha willing to share insider information, Kakuzu assumed the source was, at best, some random civilian Hidan kept locked away somewhere and tortured Konoha’s vulnerabilities out of. Instead, here sat an unassuming young woman, using a weak genjutsu to change the village marker on the hitai-ate tied around her waist. She was hunched slightly over the bartop, making awkward little shifts every so often to try and get comfortable. The way she moved made it obvious her back was injured. Maybe Hidan tortured her, after all.

Masked, cloaked missing-nin were more than commonplace in this area, which made a disguised Leaf-nin’s presence here even more suspicious.

Masked, cloaked missing-nin didn’t usually take too kindly to an unmarked Konoha plate.

The shot of sake placed in front of Kakuzu remained untouched.

The girl nursed her cup of water, her small hands clasped around the porcelain.

“…I’m not for sale, sir.” 

“Don’t flatter yourself, I have no intention of soliciting you,” he muttered.

“Aw, why not?” she asked, voice laden with false disappointment.

“I prefer my women of age.”

“You’d only be four months early, no need to make me feel like a little kid.”

“You can never be too careful, child. Konoha Shinobi seem to be getting younger by the year.”

She straightened her back, in spite of the pain it caused her. The rough tone of his voice made it clear denial would be futile.

“Ah, you’ve seen right through me,” she laughed under her breath. “Genjutsu was never my strong point.”

“Enough to fool an untrained eye. I didn’t realize they still sent Leaf-nin this far northwest. Iwa territory is hostile for your kind right now, is it not?”

“It is,” she whispered, “hence the genjutsu.”

“I see.”

“You won’t tattle on me, will you?”

She looked up at him with smiling silver eyes. He wanted to break her neck.

Met by his silence, she turned her smile back into herself, idly drumming her fingertips along the sides of her cup.

“Is there something you needed from me, sir?”

He glared at her, unblinking, until her heart rate spiked and a light sheen of sweat made the sides of her neck gleam.

“You tell me.”

“…would you believe me if I said I’m not here on a mission?”

“Why else would you be here?”

She lowered her head. “I’m waiting on someone.”

“A friend of yours?”

She smiled, solemn. “He’d hate it if I called him that.”

He kept his eyes trained on her. She didn’t meet his gaze again.

As much of a fool Hidan was to believe his source wouldn’t be investigated, Kakuzu was having trouble flipping through his rolodex of possible reasons she would leak information. Didn’t someone of her rank recognize the Akatsuki’s colors when she saw them? Did her and Hidan cross paths one day and strike some sort of deal? Could Hidan have been acting as a double agent for another village in exchange for immunity from his crimes—a triple agent, even, playing both sides of the field?

Did he control his intelligence like he did his charm?

Maybe he just _chooses_ to be an idiot.

Kakuzu wrinkled his nose at the thought. Wishful thinking, indeed.

Surreptitious, information-garnering endeavors had never been one of Hidan’s interests, but regardless of his reasons, this girl’s usefulness depended on Hidan taking time away from his regular duties to the Akatsuki. She was a distraction to their operation. Kakuzu had every intention of removing said distraction if he decided her cost outweighed her benefits.

He glanced back at his neighbor as she released a quiet, shaky sigh and brushed the length of her hair behind her. Her cloak shifted, exposing a rosary tied around one of her sidestraps.

The circular metal pendant glinted beneath the dingy bar lights, mocking him.

_…you have got to be kidding me._

There was a specific sequence of words Kakuzu never thought he’d string together during the span of his unnaturally long life, but it was this sequence now letting loose from his mouth, intent and deliberate.

“Tell me about your religion.”

The young woman noticed his gaze on her hip and she brightened up all at once. “You recognize my rosary?”

Familiar pangs of aggravation struck Kakuzu’s spine like hammer against bone.

“Unfortunately,” he growled. “I understand there’s a bible?”

“A series of them, actually. They’re called the Volumes.”

No longer nervous, the young woman was vibrating in her seat, eyes widened in excitement with the untold story bursting from her seams.

(She was waiting for permission to continue.)

With no shortage of secondhand embarrassment, Kakuzu quickly realized—as the young woman swung her legs while sitting in a stool too high for her—that her engagement with Hidan’s cult wasn’t just a cover, after all.

“…go on.”

She pressed the flats of her hands together and touched her gloved fingertips to her chin. 

“One thing that’s important to keep in mind,” she said, “is that the Volumes are highly culturally contextual pieces. They were written during a time when a religion honoring death and successful murder made sense. The original writings are fascinating, but they’re really, really old, so they can be difficult to read sometimes.”

“I’m sure whatever nonsense contained within those scripts wouldn’t be difficult to decipher.”

She quirked her head. “Do you read many archaic texts, sir?”

“...it’s a hobby of mine.”

“Neat!”

_Neat._

“Jashinism is one of the world’s oldest religions, you know,” she continued. “It can be traced back to before the establishment of villages, when clan loyalties and alliances were all that kept people together. Jashinism was founded to unite those who fought under god. Barbaric times called for a barbaric deity, so destruction was the cornerstone of the religion, and death was considered the only thing worth living for. Honestly, though, I can’t say the rise of villages changed much.”

“How so?”

“H—how so?” She looked anxious again, as she scratched her cheek with an index finger. “No one’s asked me that before…well, I mean. Konoha…that is to say, most villages…I could be reprimanded for speaking so candidly.”

Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

She looked at the mark across his hitai-ate that branded him a runaway, and laughed again, nervously.

“Konoha…” she began, cautious with her words, “is one village in a group of many who think themselves morally superior to the rest of the world. As a Shinobi who is a part of this society, my job is fighting to defend that ideal.”

Her hands no longer in thoughtful prayer, she grasped her cup of water once more, swirling the contents inside.

“It’s easier when my targets are actually bad people—murderers, rapists, war criminals. But it’s the people in the way who get to me. These Shinobi, they went to school and received training, like I did. They’re on a mission, like I am. They’re all heroes of their own stories, fighting for what they believe in, representing the village that supports them. The last thing they feel before I kill them is regret for not being able to stop the villain. I’m no better than the people I kill. The only thing that separates us is the symbol on our headbands, and the government who pays us.”

“All villages are the same,” Kakuzu replied. “Obsessed with status, reputation, and power—raising generation after generation of child soldiers to fight the political wars of their ancestors. Villages are pointless to follow. History is written by the winners, child. Don’t forget that.”

“But it won’t always be like this, will it? I mean, we evolved from the Warring Period to the societies we have today, still run by politically-mandated militarization and violence. Jashin-sama’s destructive influence is still in everything we do, but people refuse to acknowledge Him. When we evolve to a point where Jashin-sama is no longer needed, we’ll evolve to a point where Shinobi aren’t, either.”

“As society grows civilized, you grow irrelevant.”

“Exactly. And, a--a hundred years from now, when war is less prevalent and Shinobi become unnecessary, will I still be looked back upon with the honour I carry now? Or will I be seen as some…ancient, primitive thing, performing barbaric acts in a barbaric time?”

“And you hoped your deity would answer for you?”

“I—I’m sorry, sir,” she said quickly, “I’ve never talked about this before, I don’t know where this is coming from.”

He watched her push her hair back, again.

Her fingers drumming against porcelain.

Her awkward little shifts.

“I…can’t do anything to change the world as it stands. I wanted more validation for my actions than just taking my village’s word on the state of its own morality.”

“I don’t deal in morals, the market is too volatile. Morality is largely a matter of dates—what is righteous in this era can be condemned in the next. Do you know what has permanence?”

She shook her head.

“Money,” he said, pointedly. “Money, and people’s desire for it, will never change. Greed is a cultural constant.”

“Are you an accountant, sir?”

_An accountant._

“…something like that.”

They shared another moment of silence.

The young woman reached into the pouch tied behind her and pulled out a small, tattered leather book. A Jashinist symbol graced the cover. She offered it to him.

Standing up, Kakuzu tossed a few coins on the counter, paying for his untouched drink. “Not interested.”

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of soliciting you,” she laughed. “You said archaic texts were a hobby of yours, right? This is a pocketbook carried by some of the first followers of Jashin-sama. I stole it from a museum a few years ago.”

“What do I care?”

“It’s written in _man’yōgana_ , which is _ancient_ and an absolute pain in the neck to read. I think you’d appreciate it more than me, be it for its literary or monetary value. Religion can be quite profitable, you know.” She put a gloved finger to her lips. “But if you run into my priest, you didn’t get it from me.”

_Her priest._

He took her offering between his fingers before walking away.

“It was nice talking with you, sir,” she called over her shoulder.

“Likewise,” he mumbled, pocketing the book.

He’d seen her kind before.

She was a religious affiliate who leaked information in a misguided sense of rebellion against a system she couldn’t otherwise escape from. As long what she revealed remained relevant, she posed no real threat. He’d consider disposing of her once she’d served the extent of her usefulness—after a long enough period of time, it could even be profitable.

Eventually, she would defect from her village, and if Konoha’s special forces didn’t catch her, a bounty would be placed on her head by an organization run covertly by the village itself, posted underground and secretive with all the other defected Shinobi they were ashamed of. His bingo book was half-filled with people like her, radical thinkers without the strength to maintain their independence, doing little more in their own time than prolonging their own suicides. She was an investment, and he’d let her stew in her own philosophies until she was ripe for the picking.

Kakuzu left the bar, the last echoes of Hidan’s sacrifice’s laughter fading in the background.

His poor teammate would be heartbroken.


End file.
